The Writer and his Wife and Other Stories
The way I see it, a country with a stupid shape like this one can't have too much smart people in it.' On the contrary, as Reuben's diatribe reveals, 'paper-bag shaped' Trinidad is full of schemers and dreamers. Maharaj's characters struggle heroically, though sometimes comically and oddly, to make their mark on the earth.
Price
£8.99
Author(s)
Rabindranath Maharaj
ISBN number
9780948833816
Pages
180
Price
£8.99
Classification
Fiction, Short Stories
Country setting
Trinidad and Tobago
Publication date
01 Jul 1996

The way I see it, a country with a stupid shape like this one can't have too much smart people in it.' On the contrary, as Reuben's diatribe reveals, 'paper-bag shaped' Trinidad is full of schemers and dreamers. Maharaj's characters struggle heroically, though sometimes comically and oddly, to make their mark on the earth. It is as if the more frustrating their outward circumstances, the more intense their inner lives.

Bashir Ali, the librarian, has developed an intimate relationship with his books, and a passionate hatred of their borrowers. 'Bhaji and rice! You put bhaji and rice on top of Virginia!' Hoobnath Hingoo, the metalwork technician, imagines a dire fate for the arrogant young engineers who lord it around the oil refinery. 'Barbecue the whole side of them. Grill them nice and black. Afterwards we could have a sale. Grill engineers. Going cheap. Eat as much as you like...' And of course there is Roop, the writer, who wants to escape from his gas station 'to write that book... about everything I ever thought of since I born.'

Anyone who enjoys the comedies of V.S. Naipaul will find great pleasure in Maharaj's elegant and arresting style, but they will also find in Maharaj a profound empathy and understanding of his characters and their world. In the process, he gives a rewarding and insightful portrayal of the Indo-Trinidadian world in the late 20th century.

Rabindranth Maharaj was born in Trinidad. He now lives and teaches in Toronto. Several further collections of his stories have been published in Canada.

Variations

Rabindranath Maharaj

Rabindranath Maharaj was born in George Village in the rural district of Tableland in South Trinidad in 1955. He attended the local Hindu school where his father was principal. At the age of ten he left Tableland to attend Naparima College in San Fernando about twenty miles away. He lived for a time in San Fernando before studying for a BA, MA and Diploma in Education at the University of the West Indies, St. Augustine. He worked thereafter as a secondary school teacher and a columnist for the Trinidad Sunday Guardian.
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